


Holiday Traditions

by failsafe



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Christmas, Developing Relationship, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Holidays, New Year's Eve, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 20:14:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5839441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/failsafe/pseuds/failsafe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ezekiel has never marked the passage of time with holidays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holiday Traditions

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alessandralee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alessandralee/gifts).



> This fic kind of assumes the airing schedule as the time table for Season 2. In reality, I am a little unsure about how long this season of The Librarians took in-universe. If I forgot a timestamp that contradicts this, please forgive the error. The most-referenced episode in this fic is _The Point of Salvation_ , but it also assumes that the season finale has occurred. 
> 
> I really hope that you enjoy your fic!

Ezekiel has never marked the passage of time with holidays. Sure, he's aware of them coming and going – the way the 'holiday season' can be a windfall for the discerning thief. And yet, he has never had a reason to really celebrate them before. Christmas, New Years, Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween – and the list could probably go on, depending on the part of the world – have all been just days to him.

He has tried different things to mark the passage of time. Themed cocktails in hotel bars, holiday movies, and an assortment of hats. After last year's hat, he has decided to take an indefinite break from that last one.

He doesn't expect it to change this year, either. Then, they are back together again. After Peru, he hadn't really expected it to last. Only now they have a plan, a purpose, and he can't find an excuse to leave.

One day, it is the beginning of December. Maybe it's the first, second, third day, but it's certainly nowhere close to Christmas. Even so, he hears the faint and muffled rattling of little bells, discordant and not very nice, and the sound of thin artisan glass rattling against the same. He is sitting at the long, high table in the Annex, the spine of a book cracked open in front of him, and he guiltily slams it shut.

His eyes cast upward to see the second floor and someone approaching the top of the stairs. Apparently, he is not the only one to notice.

“Oh, no,” Eve complains from behind her desk. To him, she sounds more forlorn than this merits, but Flynn has just run off again. Ezekiel doesn't really understand it, but he supposes he can't blame her for being a bit miserable. “Really?”

“It's Christmas!” Cassandra calls back. She awkwardly adjusts the large plastic bin she is attempting to maneuver around the bookshelves on the upper floor. It seems bigger than last year's bin.

“It... really is _not_ ,” Eve replies, but when Ezekiel glances at her there is a crooked little smirk on her face. 

“I thought you discovered the joy of Christmas last year, _Eve_ ,” Ezekiel says, smirking with even more mirth as he draws her eyes. She looks angry, but it is exactly the kind of angry he knows he always gets by with. 

“Just because I find it a little... more understandable that people enjoy celebrating the _hope_ of a whole year ahead of them at one of the coldest, most desperate times of year for a lot of people does _not_ mean I approve of—”

“Come on, Baird,” Jake says, emerging from somewhere within the Library. Ezekiel furrows his brow, momentarily considering whether or not Jake had developed some quiet surveillance skills since they had started working together again. Quiet approach certainly isn't like him. “What's goin' on?” he asks. 

There it is. He has just come in to play peacemaker after all, which suits him as well as any of them. Ezekiel can't help but think of last Christmas – playing the good guy, playing the  _hero_ , for a little bit. Now, more than then, his feelings on the matter are a little bit muddled. 

“Cassandra wants to _deck the halls_ when I'm not even entirely sure the turkey leftovers are all gone,” Eve says with an expressive blink and tight smile. 

“Don't be such a Grinch, Christmas _Eve_ ,” Cassandra calls from above as she starts on the stairs. Behind adjusting the plastic bin, Ezekiel sees her smiling impishly. 

“ _Not_ you, too. I can't even threaten you the way I threaten him,” Eve complains. 

Ezekiel looks at Eve and notices that Jake does the same. They have both learned all-too-well that Cassandra does not particularly appreciate the kind of protection Eve seems to be suggesting. She doesn't like to be treated differently because of something about her life that isn't ever going to change. Ezekiel clears his throat. 

“And why not? Pretty sure Cassandra can hold her own in a fist-fight better than me,” he says. 

Jake turns to him and lifts his eyebrows.

Ezekiel shrugs. 

“It's true. I'm not afraid to admit it. I'm a thief – master of stealth,” he explains, then adds his favorite part of this line: “I don't do punching.” 

Eve meets his eyes and her mouth works for a moment for a word, as if she has caught herself in her own tangle. 

“That... isn't what I meant,” she says. She clears her throat, neatly recovering with a gesture of smoothing the front of her shirt. “Cassandra,” she says very plainly, “is not a criminal.” 

“Oh, I don't know,” Jake says dryly, glancing up at her at the top of the stairs where she seems to have paused to assess her descent again. 

“Hey! What's that supposed to mean?” Cassandra squeaks. Ezekiel can't help laughing a little. 

“We've all got to start somewhere,” Ezekiel calls up to her, joining in the teasing. 

“Force ratios,” Jake mumbles, and Ezekiel thinks he actually sounds scared. Someday, he'll have to ask them what that one's about. 

“Compromise!” Cassandra announces, fixing her footing as if she has decided that her height above them is a good place to make her announcement. “No _presents_ come in here until December 20 th. But I want to enjoy the sparkle for as long as we can,” she explains. 

Eve sighs and throws her hands up in a shrug. 

“Fine,” she agrees, wandering casually back to her desk. 

“'Zekiel!” Cassandra cries out, forgetting the first little bit there as she seems to have made a bit of a mistake in trying to lower the bin down. He really does not understand why she has one that is so mcuh bigger this year or where it came from. 

“What?” he answers her, already to the foot of the stairs – because they help each other when they're in tight spots, the three of them. 

She wrests the bin back into her grip, then looks down at him. She nods for him to come up. 

“C'mhere,” she says easily. “It's time to get started,” she says. “I think starting at the top makes more sense anyway, don't you think?” 

“What are you talking about?” Ezekiel asks, slowly ascending the stairs in spite of his reservations. 

“The stairs. We decorated them last year,” Cassandra says, her eyes wide and clear as she meets his. Her shoulders slump, but then he is in reach and she holds the bin out to him. He realizes what he is supposed to do and reaches out to take hold of the thing. 

“You mean I held the bin and you decorated,” Ezekiel says flatly, but he punctuates it quickly with a smile. 

Cassandra glares at him, but it is brief and equally playful. She pops the lid off the bin and casually drops it so that it slides down the stairs like a sled. 

Somewhere below, Jake seems to have already begun to busy himself with something at the table. He might have startled at the noise, judging by the look at his face when Ezekiel glances down at him. 

“What the hell was that?” Jake complains, feigning at least a little of his alarm. Ezekiel hopes. 

“Could you get that for us?” Cassandra asks sweetly. 

“Sure,” Jake says, right back to focusing on his book-cross-referencing project that Ezekiel hopes no one ever forces him to understand. Distractedly, Jake wanders over to collect the bin's lid and prop it against a table leg. 

When Ezekiel looks back to Cassandra, she is thoughtfully considering the railing of the stairs. Her face looks serene with just the faintest ghost of a smile on her lips. She tilts her head, and not making light of it – seriously, not making light of it – the way she looks at the structure running alongside the stairs scares him a little. It reminds him of something he has accepted as a part of his life but that he is no less pretty healthily afraid of most of the time – magic. 

Something in her, lately, reminds him of it more and more. He guesses that what she can do has always seemed a little like magic. He swallows against a strange, not very Christmas-y lump in his throat. He shrugs under the weight of the bin pulling at his shoulders. 

“Lot heavier this year,” he complains. “Jake is the muscle. I could—”

“No,” Cassandra requests softly, looking over at him with a hushing expression. 

“Is... there some reason he can't help—?” Ezekiel asks, cutting his question short. 

“No, it's just... this is our thing. In a few weeks, I'll help Jake with the presents. It's not that I don't want him to be a part of it,” she explains softly. “It's just... this one is ours,” she says. 

Ezekiel blinks, surprised at the weight she gives the words. It's a little intimidating. 

“What do you mean... ours? These aren't even the same decorations as last year!” he insists, just as he realizes from looking into the bin why exactly they're in a much larger container. 

“Some of them are the same,” Cassandra says. “I rearranged them. The ones I liked the best, but... there are a lot of things Jenkins keeps in storage,” she explains. “Especially with the Library back.” 

Ezekiel looks down into the bin like it is a deep, foreboding lake suddenly – possibly containing some sort of mythical monster. 

“There's not some evil magical artifact in here, is there? Something that might come to life and destroy the Library as we know it?” 

“No, of course not!” Cassandra says. “I'd never do anything like that,” she says, frowning at him for effect. 

“It's heavier,” he complains again in retort. 

“I like them,” Cassandra retorts right back. She takes a strand of tinsel and begins delicately wrapping it in place. “I told you guys last year, I never really... got to have holiday traditions,” she says. “Most of the time, it was like they didn't really exist,” she says. 

Ezekiel doesn't know why, but he is stammering a little as if to respond. She is looking at him expectantly before he ever realizes what he's going to say. 

“... Me either,” he says abruptly, when nothing else will come. 

A moment during which they simply look at each other passes in silence. Without breaking eye contact, Cassandra fumbles down into the box and draws something else out of it. Finally, she looks away and starts to fasten the tinsel to itself with a wire tie. 

“Well now we will,” she says, her voice lilting with a little bit of tentatively happy, slightly sad pride. 

Ezekiel clears his throat a bit too loudly, shifts his feet on the step, and sidles a little closer to her.

“... Helping Jake with the presents was mine last year,” he says wryly. Every time he feels that little melancholy pull between them, he has to find a way to break it up a little. He doesn't want to see her sad. It's a very simple, almost childish desire, but he has never been able to help it. Never even for a moment. 

Cassandra tilts her head, elongating her neck as she bites the tip of her tongue in a grin that prods and teases even more than free laughter. She lifts her head back up and glances at his eyes. 

“Really?” she presses. 

“I was!” Ezekiel says, playing at indignation. 

“... Well, I want to this year,” she says coyly. 

“And... what if I want to do it with you?” Ezekiel asks, trying to play coy back at her. 

“Uh-uh,” she disagrees, decisive but not with any hint of real rejection. She nudges him and he braves the precarious task of taking a step down with the bin in his arms, backwards. She moves into the vacated space and keeps wrapping and affixing decorations to the sparkling strands. She takes pause to smile at him again. “You're in charge of gingerbread cookies.” 

* * * 

Things do not go entirely to plan. The next month is fairly eventful, and half the time the cases involve someone not being entirely themselves. He hears that he had quite the adventure in that himself – repeating and repeating and repeating, over and over, watching them die. At least, that's what it seems like they don't want to tell him. 

He has played video games before. He knows what an 'escort mission' is. And most of all, sometimes when they look at him, he can see it in their eyes. 

Finally finding a solution to their Prospero problem puts them after Christmas before the presents are ever wrapped. In the end, they have a two-in-one holiday that Ezekiel can only assume will  _not_ become a part of their hoped-for holiday tradition. He can only imagine Eve's relief. 

And really, relief seems to be the overall theme of their Christmas/New Years Eve celebration. Somehow, in spite of the Serpent Brotherhood's near-assassination of Santa Claus, the holiday had retained a bubbly, humming cheer at the end of the day. This year, the joyousness seems to be a few notches lower in tone. Perhaps it was the thought that Eve and Flynn really were gone from their lives forever. Or perhaps it is the knowledge that remains that hadn't quite sunk in last year – that their little moments of peace are never going to last – book-ended by crises. 

As Ezekiel gets another batch of his assigned cookies out of the oven, he cracks a smile. 

Who doesn't enjoy a good adrenaline rush? When he signed on to be a Librarian, he really should have known there really was never going to be another way. He would prefer if there were fewer moments when his life was actually in danger, but you can't have everything. 

He sets the pan covered in little gingerbread men down in the cleared space prepared for them to cool. As he does this, he notices that his balance is just a little off. He very nearly as a bit of a catastrophe on his hands. The oven mitt seems a bit off, somehow, and he nearly upsets the pan when he goes to get the materials to decorate them when they have cooled. He catches them, but not without a small but alarming, literally somewhat blistering contact of the pan with his forearm. 

“Idiot,” he mutters in a hiss of breath. The cookies are saved, and after a brief moment of disorientation, he strides over to the sink. He turns on the cold side of the tap and stands there, the sleeve of his sweater pushed up as high above his elbow as he can manage. He crooks his arm, awkwardly letting the cold water run over the small line of burned skin. He sighs with relief, but still a bit at his stupidity – he is a world-class thief, expert at displacing priceless treasures from their displays without upsetting a single alarm, defeated by a batch of gingerbread people. 

He stands there impatiently, waiting for the sensation of the burn to be replaced by a cool numbness. He loses track of time and feels as if he is suddenly very tired. Nothing changes outwardly, and he stands very still. Only, sometimes, he thinks he remembers something that never quite takes shape in his mind. 

An unsaved game. That's what he'd heard in those first moments. Only, sometimes, just when he is falling asleep or waking from a dream, he has some sense of it. The way it must have been –  _an escort mission, failed_ over and over and over again. Thinking the thought with the little, insignificant burn on his arm – it does something in his head. He feels himself frown, finally showing some outward change. His eyes don't seem to focus on anything, and he is searching for something just beyond the reach of the life he knows. 

He cannot imagine. 

When he had signed on to be a Librarian, it was because it had sounded fun. He had planned to avoid danger, steal interesting things, and perhaps occasionally prevent the apocalypse from happening. What he had never expected was that he would  _care_ so much. 

He startles to the point that he nearly bangs the uninjured arm against something when she speaks to him. 

“Ezekiel?” Cassandra asks from the doorway. 

He lowers his arm, trying to make a smooth, arcing motion to lower his arm. He reached up and rubs at the back of his head, finally realizing just how cold he's made the skin on his other arm. Nothing dangerous, but definitely excessive. There is still water running down his arm, and as he flashes a got-this-under-control smile at her, he feels as if he has forgotten how to turn it off. 

“Hey,” he greets her. She walks over to him with a little tick down of her eyebrows. She is investigating. “... What're you doing?” she asks, staring at the water running over his arm. 

Finally, he abruptly reaches out and turns the tap off. He shakes his arm thing. 

“Oh, you know, I was just thinking,” he says dismissively. Then he winces a bit at the look she gives him. He should have gone with a bit more specific. 

“... Burnt myself. Just a little.” 

“Ezekiel!” Cassandra scolds, then she is picking up his arm near the wrist. She straightens it manually, looking for the too-pale, red-in-the-middle discoloration the edge of the pan had left. 

“It's nothing. I'll wander into the Library, drop of magic potion, and poof!” he assures her. “Doesn't even hurt anymore anyway,” he says honestly. 

“You're cold,” Cassandra says as she picks up a dish towel and begins to dab all but the burn itself dry. Then she dries it, much more gingerly. 

It still makes him hiss a little. It isn't serious, but sometimes minor burns hurt worse than the serious one. He swallows hard at the thought. 

“... Ezekiel, what's wrong?” she presses. 

“Nothing. It's just... sometimes get a little...” he says, then he just gestures to his head with the arm she has not commandeered. 

“... A burn,” Cassandra says with a different kind of frown. This one means she's figuring things out, recalling things no ordinary person could recall. Only, maybe an ordinary person could recall something like that, after the fact. Even if he can't. 

He looks away, pointedly, toward the gingerbread. 

“I'm sure you'd like to help decorate them,” he says. 

“Ezekiel,” she says, insisting on his attention. She sets the towel aside, and he notices that his arm is dry. Even his fingers. “A burn,” she repeats. “You don't—” she says. 

He looks back at her because she will not let him walk away. He has never met anyone who has that power in quite such a way before. He watches her eyes, looking for a way out, finding none. 

“... No,” he answers eventually. He is a bit too smart to play dumb. She has figured it out, and probably thinks that it is worse than it is. “I don't... remember. It's just that, sometimes, I think I must... know what it's like. To be trapped in there, repeating it over and over. Starting again every time you—” And he doesn't remember, but he still can't say it. 

“An endless maze,” Cassandra says in that half-magic tone that he swears could creep anyone out. 

“Labyrinth,” he says with something approaching a nervous chuckle but too weak to be. He shrugs, almost shyly. “... Guess you never get out after all,” he adds dryly. 

“Maybe not,” Cassandra says. But then she's reaching up, touching his cheek and brushing her thumb back and forth as if to tell him that everything is going to be okay. His eyes fall shut and almost instantly believes her. 

She is warmer than his forearm, and her hand wraps safely around a part of it that doesn't hurt at all. He feels a little pull, and the rest of her is warmer, too. Somehow, he has never become much of one for hugging, but as her body heat moves closer while she keeps brushing a thumb against his cheek, he thinks he could use one. Maybe he could become a hugging-person. 

Then, he feels something only a little less foreign than hugging. Suddenly, his breath isn't just his own. It is gentle, but her lips are definitely on his. At first, they just touch, but then he feels a little tentative movement. He feels her breath – a quick jerk of it, like she's nervous. 

His free arm crooks at the elbow and he touches her waist. His hand grips, but it is the kind of grip that feels like it means to hold onto something. He is not trying to pull anything. He is trying to hold onto something, or maybe to steady her. When their lips slide together, almost fitting and searching for a way still, he wonders if they might be the same thing. 

All at once, she pulls away with a soft  _pop_ , and he opens his eyes, blinking. 

“Sorry!” she says, and it seems a bit off. A bit canned, like a line from a movie. Her cheeks are flushed and she's wide-eyed. 

He quickly lifts the hand that had been on her waist up in surrender. 

“It's okay!” he assures her, passionately. He definitely does not want her to think there is anything wrong with this, even if it is something he was probably least-expecting. His heart is beating a little quicker, and he swears that it means something. It means too much to decide this quickly, and he doesn't like the suspense. “No, it's okay. Definitely don't apologize,” he insists, feeling a bit like his tone is deflating somehow. The drop in his heart rate feels like regret settling in, but he would really rather it didn't. 

“Okay,” Cassandra agrees cautiously. She reaches up and actually touches her lower lip. 

Ezekiel hadn't thought anyone actually did that. 

“Okay,” she repeats. Then she is still touching her lower lip and it's tugging it own ever so slightly while she speaks. “It's just... it's close to midnight!” she explains. It seems like a lame excuse – as good as any lame excuse could be. But it catches him so off-guard that he has to ask. 

“... Midnight?” 

“Yeah! Yeah, it's this thing. That I think people do sometimes,” she says. 

“... Kissing?” Ezekiel asks, not feigning ignorance as to what she's going on about. 

“You know! Like in movies,” she says helpfully. 

“What sort of movies?” Ezekiel asks, honestly trying to keep up. He thinks that it might have something to do with the fact that his own lips are still tingling with sensation they had not been expecting. It is like an itch, and he really wants to scratch it, but it seems inappropriate. He shifts his weight a little and leans his back a bit against the counter, placing a small amount of space between them without closing himself off. 

“Kissing, like at New Years,” Cassandra explains with a heavy, weary sigh that makes Ezekiel know she's alright. “It's, like, for good luck,” she explains with a few quick, odd gestures of her fingers that look like she's weaving a complicated cat's cradle. 

“... Right. Right,” Ezekiel manages to say, nodding sagely with the second. “Of course,” he says with a little frown that he doesn't let stick. 

“And you're... okay with it?” Cassandra asks, her eyebrows lifting a little along her forehead. 

“Absolutely,” Ezekiel says. “Are you—” he starts to ask. 

“Yeah! Definitely. I just... I just had never—” she says, but then she purses her lips tight. Her entire frame goes rigid in much the same way, and with something that looks a bit like a curtsey, she backs away. “I'll see you in a bit!” she says, then she turns on her toes and disappears into another room. 

“Yeah...” he echoes into nothing. His heart is still a little quick, but there's nowhere to run, nothing to steal, and no people to save. Instead, there is a little smile on his face, and a little heavy pull of confusion in his chest. 

* * * 

They don't talk about it for a while. It doesn't seem like it's a problem. If anything, the problem is him, Ezekiel decides. 

Almost a month has passed, and he still cannot help thinking about the fact that he had not minded kissing. Still, it seems like a leap to go from hardly hugging at all to kissing, given how much hugging seems to happen around him all the time. It is not, he has decided, that he is all that opposed to hugging. 

Instead, it is something they had talked about, two months ago now. Traditions and habits are much the same. A person has to have a starting point, the beginning of such things, to have them. Ezekiel has been on his own for so long that he honestly cannot remember if he has ever had a hugging kind of relationship with anyone before. And kissing is different, but it has always been a different kind of kissing. 

He has never stayed in the same place long enough for it to be any different. And yet, the Library is the closest thing to a home that he has had in a long, long time. 

The Christmas decorations have come down. He helped with that bit. And one day, in early February, he comes into the Annex to find a few red decorations – hearts, for the most part – being affixed to a much more limited percentage of the stairway railing. Cassandra is almost to the top when he sees her, watching quietly for a moment. 

“I asked her if she wanted Cupid's bow to hang up by the door, by any chance,” Jenkins announces wryly as he walks up alongside Ezekiel. He seems in a much more jovial mood than Ezekiel ever gives him credit for having. For some reason, it almost gives Ezekiel the impulse to dust off his shoulder. 

“... She _didn't_ say yes?” Ezekiel confirms. 

“I'm pleased to report not,” Jenkins says. 

“I heard that!” Cassandra calls as she hangs her last heart. She turns around to give Jenkins a look, but her smile seems a little less half-dangerous when it is directed at Ezekiel. She looks away quickly, though, busying herself with work that is done. 

“Of course you did, Ms. Cillian. It is a credit to you that you do not think weapons are toys,” Jenkins replies. 

“Why'd you offer it to her?” Ezekiel asks, honestly curious and with a frown. Then, given recent events, he suddenly realizes that the answer to that question might, on an off chance, be awkward. He tries not to give him the chance to answer. “Don't tell me you know Cupid.” 

“My acquaintances are many and varied,” Jenkins says, helpfully cryptic as always. 

“You're still trying to weed us out,” Ezekiel accuses, half-hearted and not at all believing it. 

“It was nicer when the passage of decades was a little quieter without all this constant fuss over holidays and their various... decorations,” Jenkins says. 

Ezekiel still thinks he's lying through his teeth. He grins and folds his arms across his chest, giving Jenkins a look that he tries to insist be acknowledged. He hears the clip-clop of the soles of Cassandra's shoes descending the stairs in quick, enthusiastic fashion. He is still, however, invested in this staring contest. 

“Come on, Mr. Jenkins!” Cassandra says as she reaches out for Jenkins forearm. She places both hands down on his jacket sleeve with entirely warm, innocent affection – sweet enough to rot a tooth. Jenkins seems to squirm almost in pain beneath it. “You _have_ all these decorations. You _can't_ fool me.” 

“... It is a bit less tedious,” Jenkins says as he backs out of her touch without any violent allergic reaction. He goes to find something to busy himself with among the ever-changing pile on the table. “Having someone to untangle all of it for me. Do you _know_ how many times I have seen the holiday calendar change?” 

Ezekiel notices that Cassandra is looking up at nothing, toward the ceiling. 

Finding a segue to greet her, he gently nudges his elbow into her side. 

“Oi, don't think it was a serious question,” he stage-whispers toward her ear. 

“Well, it might be,” Jenkins says. “I don't actually remember.” Then he is thoroughly engrossed in something he is turning about in his hands. Looks safe enough, but Ezekiel knows that looks can be deceiving. 

He turns to look at Cassandra. 

She looks back at him. 

Then they both move. 

Cassandra is looking at her feet. 

Ezekiel is looking up at her handiwork. 

“So, Valentine's Day, huh?” he asks, as if there is any doubt. 

“They were cute. Besides, I figured Jenkins could use a little reminder,” she says, lifting her gaze back up to his to show a conspiratorial expression. “If you know what I mean. Everyone can get a little too cooped up,” she mumbles through comically gritted teeth. 

“I heard that, Ms. Cillian,” Jenkins says without looking up. 

“Ah-ha! I got ya,” Cassandra says with a little bouncing flex of her ankles. She points at him for effect, but when Ezekiel glances back he sees that Jenkins refuses to look up. 

Then they are back to looking at each other. 

“... Anyway,” she says. Then she looks back at her own little hung, felt and glittering paper hearts. “It just seems nice. It doesn't have to be all... mushy, couple-y stuff. You know. Just... it's nice. Thinking about... love. All of it.” 

“Yeah,” Ezekiel agrees, because he wouldn't really argue with the concept. He just isn't so sure about the application of it. His mouth is hanging open, and for a moment he wishes for the apocalypse – in order to stop it, of course. 

“Oh!” Cassandra says, obviously to get his attention – which she has, wholeheartedly and whether he's fond of the idea or not. He starts anyway. Her enthusiasm is like that. “I'm glad you're here. There's something I want you to help me with.” 

“Um... sure?” Ezekiel agrees, following her to the other end of the long table. 

Jenkins sighs a bit dramatically. 

Cassandra reaches down into a soft knapsack she has kicked just behind the table leg. She pulls out a fairly rectangular box made of cardboard that reflects little purple and pink patterns from the majority of the packaging. She opens it up as eagerly as she can without tearing the cardboard and dumps its contents onto the table. Out pour an assortment of equally rectangular cards of a much smaller side. Some of them have fallen greeting side up. Those cards have various affectionate affirmations, platitudes, and a few pet-related puns. Those that have fallen with their decorative side up are adorned with sparkling photographs of pets decked in heart-themed attire. 

“... Cards,” Ezekiel says, because it is the only thing they could be. At the same time, he is tossed a couple of different-colored pens. 

“Yeah! Cards, like they hand out in elementary school,” Cassandra explains. She looks at his eyes for understanding. She is on his end of the table now. He feels the warmth of her arm against his as she sways her weight foot to foot. 

“And what if I didn't go to primary school?” Ezekiel asks. 

He feels a little scuff of a sole against the laces of his shoe. 

“All the more reason!” Cassandra says. “... Now, pick one out for everybody,” she says with an additional nudge. This time it seems to be from the level of her hip. He tries not to think too hard about it. 

He takes a deep breath and seriously considers the offering before them. He reaches out and flips them all over until each of the picture sides are facing up. Then he selects two that match except for their purple and pink backgrounds. 

“How about these two rabbits for Eve and Flynn?” he asks with a devilish grin. 

At first, Cassandra simply appreciates the little bunnies with delight. Her hands come together in the innocent pose of prayer. Then she looks up to him and her hands flatten against the table with indignation. She doesn't look away from him, and he doesn't exactly see her blush. 

“Ezekiel!” she scolds. 

“Mr. Jones and Ms. Cillian,” Jenkins says, still without looking up from his work. 

“Primary school indeed,” Ezekiel says as he tries to quite seriously write a single sentence message for both Eve and Flynn on his selected cards in addition to the packaged greeting. He has never done this before, has no idea what to say, but he has a sense that it is something he is meant to do. 

“See, that's nice,” Cassandra announces with an approving nod – apparently reading over his shoulder. 

Ezekiel meets her eyes after he has folded the two cards with their built-in tabs. 

“So...” he prompts. “Which one is for me?” he asks, taking just this much of a chance. He never has _not_ enjoyed pushing his luck. 

For a moment, he thinks he has done the wrong thing. She looks down at the table, across each of the cards, and she looks serious. Then, she picks one up and cups her hand over it as she writes on it. 

Ezekiel cranes his neck over in exaggerated fashion, only to get another jab in the ribs. 

“No peeking!” Cassandra orders. Then she folds the card shut. “Absolutely no peeking until Valentine's Day. That's part of the tradition,” she says with a nod. Then she flashes it over to show him. There is quite the charming kitten on the front, leaned down in an agile pose, adorable little claws flexing over a cushion in shape of a heart. 

Ezekiel blinks at the picture and searches Cassandra's face for some sign of why she seems to have decided that this is the perfect card. One of the best things about her, really, is that there is something a little scary about her. Something a little bit weird. Something a little bit, maybe, magic. 


End file.
